This invention relates to an improvement in the performance,the stability and the versatility to the water craft as configured in the U.S. Pat. No. 6,595,815 and relates to the application of U.S. Provisional Patent No. 60/762,460 filed Jan. 27, 2006.
The water craft in the U.S. Pat. No. 6,595,815 is of a trimaran design with a central stationary hull flanked by two rotatively driven active hulls, one on each side. The central hull is of a conventional design and the active hulls are in the shape of a hollow truncated water-tight cone with their axis of rotation positioned approximately forty five degrees relative to the horizontal and projected laterally from the central stationary hull. The active hulls are therefore arranged three-dimentionally to gain the capability of actively diverting water toward the side and the rear for the purpose of drastically reducing frontal and friction drag. The active hulls are equipped with paddles for propulsion. The central stationary hull is designed to have surfaces to recover some of energy wasted by the paddling of the active hulls and the location of the central hull is such that some of the energy of the bow waves generated by the central hull is captured by the paddles of the active hulls to help with their rotation.
It is an object of this invention to improve the hydrodynamic performance, the stability and the versatility of the water craft as configured in the U.S. Pat. No. 6,595,815 by the use of a new configuration of the active hulls and the stationary hull, the modification of the active hulls and the stationary hull and the addition of a pair of the modified active hulls.